Image: Supplied.

Ninth place at the Valencia GP on Sunday completed what’s been an ‘up and down’ first season with Yamaha for Jack Miller, the Prima Pramac pilot ranked P17 in the MotoGP World Championship standings for 2025.

A high-profile return to his former team after departing Red Bull KTM Factory Racing generated significant interest this season, with the pair delivering a fifth-place finish at Circuit of the Americas in round three

That form proved sporadic for the 30-year-old, who added three further top 10 finishes across the season. Seven DNFs ultimately limited his campaign, though he still closed out the year as the second-highest-ranked Yamaha rider in 17th overall.

“It was a good race [in Valencia], even though I suffered from having to push too much to stay with the guys,” reflected Miller. “The tyre was spinning massively, but you can‘t sacrifice anything because the others aren‘t, and they‘re gaining. So we‘re spinning more than the others, with less acceleration.

“I tried to manage the left-hand side of the tyre on entry and control the way I was carrying the speed, but in the end, with 10 laps to go, the tyre gave up and I was just bleeding time. Now we‘ll put this bike in the cellar and start working on the new one to see what we can do.”

For 2026, Miller expects the transition to be smoother, now entering his second year on Yamaha machinery – with each of the four YZR-M1 entries to be equipped with the brand’s incoming V4 engine configuration.

“It [2026] won‘t be as big a step as the one I had during the year, going from what I knew to this bike,” he added. “Over the season, we‘ve been up and down – some good highlights and some decent lowlights too – but in the last couple of races, since Australia, we‘ve managed to understand the front-end a bit more. Next year‘s bike will be different, but the DNA is the same.”